Thursday, September 27, 2007

Monkey Tales (9.27.07) doormatocrat debate edition

The Washington Post reports that Hillary Clinton, the Republican front runner in the upcoming presidential election, would staunchly defend and perpetuate Bush’s policies of war and economic insanity.

“...the candidates debated how to make the Social Security system solvent. Clinton refused to point to specific remedies.

"I think it's important that you cannot give away what you're going to be negotiating over when it comes to Social Security until you make it clear that fiscal responsibility has got to be the premise of the negotiation," Clinton said,

Must fiscal responsibility be the premise of the negotiation? Yes, if you are a Republican. That little social security check won’t even cover the champagne and caviar budget. Who needs it? Better to invest in a hedge fund, oil companies and defense contractors and/or buy another summer home.

Normal people, however, think that providing social security, you know, enough money for the elderly to cover their basic needs, should be the premise of any negotiation about Social Security.

Regarding Bush’s war in Iraq, Clinton stressed that she would continue his policies.
saying those combat missions would be aimed at eradicating al-Qaeda in Iraq...

Yes, it’s necessary for the Bush/Clinton war strategy to keep al-Qeada in Iraq active and the only way to do that is to keep troops there as targets. If we were to remove the troops, there would be no al-Qeada in Iraq and we would need to find a new excuse to stay there and feed the ”defense“ industry trillions of dollars.

Clinton also stressed her support for Bush to expand the war to Iran, defending her vote for a law that designates a large part of their armed forces as ”terrorists,“ a bill widely acknowledged as laying the groundwork for war. John Edwards, rushing to her defense, claimed that she simply did not understand the issue, that she had learned nothing from her support of Bush in the lead up to the Iraq war. Realistically however, she’s demonstrating that she learned a lot from how Bush got us into it, that she has learned an effective way to start a disastrous war for no good reason (for the majority of Americans and mankind) and that as president she would use that experience to start one with Iran.

If a war with a much smaller, largely disarmed Iraq costs $200 + billion a year, how much would a war with the larger, better armed Iran cost? Would fiscal responsibility be the premise of the negotiation? If that war spawned tens of thousands of new terrorists and made the world a much more dangerous place, how many terrorists would a war with Iran spawn? We could have virtually countless excuses for countless military opertaions. From the Republican point of view, fiscal responsibility is cutting social security so we can afford endless, stupid wars that pad the portfolios of their investors, err campaign donors, err constituents. It’s reassuring that Hillary Clinton, the Republican front runner has her priorities straight.

In the same article the Post reports that Gov. Bill Richardson and Rep. Dennis Kucinich were somehow allowed to participate in the Republican debate, but patriotically doesn’t report anything that they had to say.